William Tyndale : the translator of the English Bible

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BR 350 ,T8 D34 1905
Dallmann, William, 1862-

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William Tyndale

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WILLIAM TYNDALE

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. TYNDALE'S LIFE IN ENGLAND 9

II. TYNDALE'S WORK IN GERMANY 26

III, TYNDALE'S DEATH IN HOLLAND .. 47

IV. TYNDALE'S INFLUENCE 63

[51

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Tyndale - -- - Frontispiece

Erasmus 10

Home of Sir John Walsh ._ 13

John Cochlaeus 15

Sir Harry Guildford 20

Bishop Tunstal 22

Henry VIII 39

Thomas More - 43

Sir Thomas Elyot 48

Charles V 50

Tyndale Betrayed 52

Castle of Vilvorde 54

Autograph of Tyndale 56

Tyndale Strangled and Burned 58

Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter 64

Archbishop Cranmer 66

First Reading of Bible in St. Paul's, 1541 68

Edward VI 70

Bloody Mary .-. 72

Queen Elizabeth 73

Tyndale Monument 75

James I - 77

Statue of Tyndale in London 78

[71

WILLIAM TYNDALE

CHAPTER ONE
TYNDALE'S LIFE IN ENGLAND

1. Tyndale at School

William Tyndale was born about 1494
in Gloucestershire, near Wales.

About 1506 he went to Magdalen Hall,
Oxford, and became Bachelor of Arts July 4,
1512, and Master of Arts July 2, 1515.

Tyndale read the Greek New Testament
with students of the college. Grocyn had
learned Greek in Italy and was the first to
teach it in Oxford in 1492. But the party
of the "Trojans" opposed the study of Greek.
One of the colleges had forbidden the en-
trance of the Greek New Testament within
its walls "by horse or by boat, by wheels
or on foot." Richard Croke, professor of
Greek at Leipzig, came back to Cambridge
in 1518 to teach Greek. About 1519 Tyndale
went to Cambridge, where Erasmus was
teaching Greek and editing his Greek New
Testament. In 1520 the magnificent Wolsey
made his triumphal visit to Cambridge and
was greeted with a most fulsome eulogy.
[91

Holbein

[10]

Tyndale's Life in England

Early next year Luther's works were burned
at Paul's Cross in London, and at the Easter
term they were burned at Cambridge — the
cost for "drinks," etc., was two shillings.

2. Tyndale a Tutor

About 1522 we find Tyndale as tutor in
the family of Sir John Walsh at Little Sud-
bury, in Gloucestershire, twelve miles north-
east of Bristol, who had been the king's
champion at the coronation of Henry VIIL

"The continuous stream of Lutheran
literature" began to pour into English sea-
ports in 1521. Lutheran books, though rig-
orously prohibited, were probably not un-
known amongst the imports that floated up
the Avon to the warehouses of the Bristol
merchants. "There was talk of learning as
well of Luther and Erasmus Roterodamus
as* of opinions in the Scriptures. The said
Master Tyndale being learned and which had
been a student of divinity in Cambridge, and
did many times therein shew his mind and
learning." Sir John kept a good table,
and the clergy were often invited. Tyndale
had an uncomfortable way of crushing his
opponents by clinching his arguments with
chapter and verse of the Bible. As a result
[111

Tyndale's Life in England

they began to hate him and stayed away
from the good dinners of Master Walsh rather
than have the "sour sauce" of Tyndale's
arguments. The clergy were very ignorant.
A visitation at Salisbury in 1222 showed five
out of seventeen clergymen could not trans-
late the words of consecration of the Mass.
Nearly three hundred years later Archbishop
Warham complained the Canterbury monks
"are wholly ignorant of what they read" in
the divine service. A generation later, in
the reign of Edward VI, Bishop Hooper of
Gloucester examined 311 clergy; of these
168 were unable to repeat the Ten Com-
mandments, 31 could not tell where they
came from, 40 were unable to repeat the
Lord's Prayer, about 40 could not name the
author.

In 1408 Archbishop Arundel had the Con-
vocation of Canterbury expressly forbid any
man to translate any part of the Scriptures
into English or to read such translation with-
out authority of the bishop, an authority not
likely to be granted. The Bible was not
even a part of the preparatory study of
the preachers. Writing against Alexander
Alesius to James V of Scotland, Cochlaeus,
the notorious Romish theologian, says: "The

[121

[131

Tyndale's Life in England

New Testament translated into the language
of the people is in truth the food of death,
the fuel of sin, the veil of malice, the pretext
of false liberty, the protection of disobe-
dience, the corruption of discipline, the de-
pravity of morals, the termination of con-
cord, the death of honesty, the well-spring
of vices, the disease of virtues, the instiga-
tion of rebellion, the milk of pride, the nour-
ishment of contempt, the death of peace, the
destruction of charity, the enemy of unity,
the murderer of truth!"

In 1529 Latimer, at Cambridge, in his two
famous "Sermons on the Card," urged the
translation and universal reading of the
Bible. Prior Buckenham objected in a ser-
mon on "Christmas Dice": "Where Scrip-
true saith, 'No man that layeth his hand to
the plough and looketh back is meet for the
kingdom of God,' will not the ploughman,
when he readeth these words, be apt forth-
with to cease from his plough, and then
where will be the sowing and harvest?
Likewise, also, whereas the baker readeth,
'A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,'
will he not forthwith be too sparing in the
use of leaven, to the great injury of our
health? And so, also, when the simple man

[141

JOHN COCHLAEUS

[151

Tyndale's Life in England

reads the words 'If thine eye offend thee,
pluck it out and cast it from thee,' incon-
tinent he will pluck out his eyes, and so the
whole realm will be full of blind men, to
the great decay of the nation and the mani-
fest loss of the king's grace. And thus, by
reading of Holy Scriptures, will the whole
kingdom be in confusion." (Demaus, Life
of Latimer, p. 77.)

"Some years before the rise of the Lu-
theran heresy there was in morals no disci-
pline, in sacred literature no erudition, in
divine things no reverence; religion was
almost extinct," are the words of Cardinal
Bellarmine.

So it need not surprise us that Tyndale
was soon suspected of heresy when he al-
ways proved his points with the Bible. The
outspoken young scholar caused many an
uneasy hour to Lady Walsh, who would re-
mind him that bishops and abbots having
an income of hundreds of pounds yearly held
views the very opposite of his; and "were
it reason, think you, that we should believe
you before them?" Of course it was difficult
for a moneyless young scholar to answer
such an argument from such a source. In
order to strengthen his position with his

fl6]

Tyndale's Life in England

wavering hostess by the testimony of Eras-
mus, whose fame was resounding through
Europe, Tyndale translated his Handbook of
a Christian Soldier, and Sir John Walsh and
his lady were won over to his opinions, and
the clergy were no more invited.

3. Tyndale Preaches

Tyndale often preached in the near-by
little church of St. Adeline and even on
St. Austin's Green of Bristol. His preaching
was fiercely attacked by the clergy. "These
blind and rude priests, flocking together to
the ale-house, — for that was their preach-
ing-place,— raged and railed against him,
affirming that his sayings were heresy, add-
ing moreover unto his sayings, of their own
heads, more than ever he spake."

4. Tyndale is Tried

Tyndale was secretly accused to Chan-
cellor John Bell, and preparations to con-
demn him were quietly made. Summoned
to appear, Tyndale went, though fearing that
evil was intended, and "prayed in his mind
heartily to God to strengthen him to stand
fast in the truth of His Word." "When
I came before the Chancellor, he threatened
me grievously and reviled me and rated me

Tyndale 117]

Tyndale's Life in England

as though I had been a dog." But Tyndale's
defense seems to have been ably conducted,
for he left the court neither branded as a
heretic nor even forced to swear off any-
thing; "folk were glad to take all to the
best," as Sir Thomas More wrote.

5. Tyndale Does Some Thinking

Tyndale thought long and hard why the
clergy should oppose so violently the opin-
ions taken from the Bible and in his doubts
consulted "a certain doctor that had been
an old chancellor before to a bishop," prob-
ably William Latimer, the Oxford Humanist.
His doubts were resolved in a most unex-
pected manner. "Do you not know," said
the Doctor, "that the Pope is the very Anti-
christ which the Scripture speaketh of? But
beware what you say; for if you shall be
perceived to be of that opinion, it will cost
you your life. I have been an officer of his,
but I have given it up and defy him and all
his works."

Convinced of this, Tyndale was also con-
vinced that, to save the Church, the com-
mon people must have the Bible in their
own tongue. He was no dreamer or fanatic;
with a clear eye he saw the seat of trouble,

[181

Tyndale's Life in England

and with a glowing heart and firm will he
set about to seek the only remedy. "I per-
ceived how that it was impossible to estab-
lish the lay people in any truth except the
Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes
in their mother tongue that they might see
the process, order, and meaning of the text."
"In this they be all agreed, to drive you
from the knowledge of the Scripture and
that ye shall not have the text thereof in
the mother tongue and to keep the world
still in darkness, to the intent they might sit
in the consciences of the people through vain
superstition and false doctrine, to satisfy
their filthy lusts, their proud ambition, and
unsatiable covetousness and to exalt their
own honor above king and emperor, yea,
above God Himself, . . . which thing only
moved me to translate the New Testament."
"Communing and disputing," says Fox,
"with a certain learned man, he drove him
to that issue that the learned man said, 'We
were better to be without God's laws than
the Pope's.' Master Tyndale hearing that,
answered him, 'I defy the Pope and all his
laws,' and added. If God spare my life, ere
many years I will cause a boy that driveth
the plow shall know more of the Scripture
119]

SIR HARRY GUILDFORD

1201

Tyndale's Life in England

than thou doest.' " This became known;
the priests waxed fiercer in their opposition;
they charged him with heresy; they hinted
at burning him.

6. Tyndale Goes to London

With an introduction to Sir John's friend,
Sir Harry Guildford, Controller of the Royal
Household, Tyndale in 1523 went to London
to see the new bishop, Cuthbert Tunstal,
whom Erasmus had praised for his love of
learning. As proof of his scholarship Tyn-
dale took with him "an oration of Isocrates
which I had translated out of greke in to
English."

Two years before Tyndale's arrival in
London it was discovered that Luther's books
had been imported in such numbers that
Wolsey required all to deUver up the works
of the arch-heretic to the church authorities;
yet the books were brought in by the mer-
chants who traded with the Low Countries.
Henry himself, who loved theological con-
troversy and prided himself on his ortho-
doxy, had written against Luther and been
rewarded for his zeal by the title of "De-
fender of the Faith," still fondly cherished
as the most honorable of all the distinctions
of the English sovereigns.

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Tyndale's Life in Etigland

The example of the king was, of course,
followed by the clergy; the pulpits re-
sounded with fierce denunciations of the
"detestable and damnable heresies" of that
"child of the devil" who had ventured to
resist the authority of the Pope. The atten-
tion of Parliament was directed to the re-
ported spread of Lutheranism in the Univer-
sity of Cambridge, and it was proposed to
search the suspected colleges, which, how-
ever, Wolsey forbade.

Until he could see Tunstal, Tyndale
preached in St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, cor-
ner of the Strand and Fleet Street, and
greatly impressed Humphrey Monmouth,
a wealthy, educated, and traveled cloth
merchant, later an alderman and a sheriff,
who lived near the Tower. Tyndale gained
the sympathy of the generous merchant,
who himself had begun "to be a Scripture-
man" and whose special pleasure it was to
assist needy scholars.

Tunstal accorded an interview to Tyn-
dale, acknowledged the scholarship of the
stranger, but said his house was full and
advised the young man to seek a place else-
where.

"The priest came to me again," says

[23]

Tyndale's Life in England

Monmouth, "and besought me to help him;
and so I took him into my house half a
year; and there he lived like a good priest,
as methought. He studied most j5art of the
day and of the night at his book; and he
would eat but sodden meat by his good will
and drink but small single beer. I never
saw him wear linen about him in the space
he was with me. I did promise him ten
pounds sterling to pray for my father and
mother their souls and all Christian souls."
For this kindness to Tyndale, Monmouth
was imprisoned in the Tower. Sir Thomas
More, while fiercely fighting Tyndale's doc-
trines, admits that "before he went over the
sea, he was well known for a man of right
good living, studious and well learned in the
Scripture, and looked and preached holily."
Monmouth bought and studied the works
of Luther and had all the usual marks of
the "detestable sect of Lutherans." Hither-
to Tyndale "seems to have looked up to
Erasmus as the great light and guide of the
age and the true reformer of religion; now
he heard of a greater Reformer, whose words
of more impressive eloquence, and, still
more, whose conduct of more resolute de-
termination, had achieved what Erasmus

[24]

Tyndcde's Life in Erigland

had rather recommended than attempted. . . .
There can be no question that from this time
onwards Luther occupied the highest place
in his esteem and exercised very consider-
able influence over his opinions," says
Demaus.

Tyndale saw men led to prison and to
death for having Luther's writings, and he
knew well a Bible translation would be still
more dangerous. At last the simple-minded
scholar "understood not only that there was
no room in my lord of London's palace to
translate the New Testament, but also, that
there was no place to do it in all England."
Tyndale was not the man to put his hand
to the plow and then draw back; if only
a life of exile could do the work, a Hfe of
exile he would accept. "To give the people
the bare text of Scripture, he would offer
his body to suffer what pain or torture, yea,
what death His Grace [Henry VIII] would,
so that this be obtained."

[251

CHAPTER TWO
TYNDALE'S WORK IN GERMANY

About May, 1524, Tyndale sailed to Ham-
burg, unto "poverty, mine exile out of mine
natural country, and bitter absence from
my friends, the hunger, the thirst, the cold,
the great danger wherewith I was every-
where compassed, the innumerable other
hard and sharp fightings which I had to
endure."

1. Tyndale at Wittenberg

Wittenberg was "the common asylum of
all apostates," as Duke George of Saxony
styled it; "the little town which had sud-
denly become the sacred city of the Refor-
mation," as Green puts it, rightly; for
Scultetus says of certain travelers, "as they
came in sight of the town, they returned
thanks to God with clasped hands, for from
Wittenberg, as heretofore from Jerusalem,
the light of evangelical truth had spread to
the uttermost parts of the earth."

"Guillelmus Daltici ex Anglia" registered
at Wittenberg on May 27, 1524 — none other
than William Tyndale. On the 30th we find
the name of Matthias von Emersen of Ham-
burg, nephew of widow Margaret von Emer-

[26]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

sen, who entertained Tyndale. "Guilhelmus
Roy ex Londino" registered on June 10,
1525 — William Roy, Tyndale's helper.

At Wittenberg, Tyndale "had conference
with Luther and other learned men in those
parts," Fox says. Free from danger, Tyn-
dale settled down to his life-work. He used
the 1522, third, edition of Erasmus's Greek
New Testament and "systematically con-
sulted" Luther's German New Testament.
Froude says Tyndale translated under Lu-
ther's "immediate direction," and Green
speaks of "Tyndale's Lutheran translation."

2. Tyndale at Cologne

In the spring of 1525 Tyndale went to
Hamburg to send to Monmouth for the ten
pounds left with him, and at the same time
he sent "a little treatise," Bugenhagen's
Letter to the English?

Hans Collenbeck brought the money, and
Tyndale and Roy went to Cologne, where
Peter Quentel was to print three thousand
copies.

John Cochlaeus, whom the papists call

"the scourge of Luther," was in Cologne and

heard the printers boast that all England

in a short time would become Lutheran.

[27]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

"Inviting, therefore, some printers to his
lodgings, after they were excited with wine,
one of them in private conversation dis-
closed to him the secret by which England
was to be drawn over to the party of Luther,
viz., that there were at that very time in the
press 3,000 copies of the Lutheran New
Testament, translated into the English lan-
guage, and that they had advanced as far
as the letter K in the order of the sheets."
These are Tyndale's "Matthew and Mark,"
of which we read.

Cochlaeus got Hermann Rinck, a senator
of Cologne, well known to the Emperor and
the King of England, to procure the order
to stop the printing, and the King, Cardinal
Wolsey, and Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester,
were warned by Cochlaeus to keep a sharp
lookout in all the seaports of England "to
prevent the importation of the pernicious
merchandise."

3. Tyndale at Wonns

About October, 1525, Tyndale fled to
Worms, "full of the rage of Lutheranism,"
according to Cochlaeus, and Peter Schoeffer
printed three thousand octavo Testaments.

Tyndale's New Testament is often called

[28]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

"Luther's New Testament in English." Why?
1. Compare Luther's German Testament of
September, 1522, with Tyndale's English
Testament of 1525, and it is clear at a glance
that Tyndale's is Luther's in miniature: the
appearance of the page, the arrangement of
the text, the inner margin for the references
and the outer one for the explanations, the
"pestilent glosses" — all are the same. 2. The
"pestilent glosses," as Henry VIII called
them, or marginal notes of Tyndale's, are
literally taken from Luther or reproduced
from Luther; some are original with Tyn-
dale. 3. The translation is from the original
Greek, but Luther's was used systematically.
4. In Tyndale's prolog many passages have
been borrowed from Luther, "as the reader
speedily begins to suspect from the charac-
teristic ring of the sentences." Two pages
are taken almost word for word from Lu-
ther. A comparison of the two "fully justi-
fies the assertion that he reproduced in
English Luther's German Testament," as the
Athenaeum says.

Dr. Edward Lee, the King's almoner, on
December 2, 1525, wrote Henry VIII from
Bordeaux: "An Englishman, at the solicita-
tion and instance of Luther, with whom he

129]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

is, hath translated the New Testament into
English and within a few days intendeth to
return with the same imprinted into England.
I need not to advertise Your Grace what
infection and danger may ensue hereby if
it be not withstanded. This is the next
[nearest] way to fulfil [fill full] your realm
with Lutherans. For all Luther's opinions
be grounded upon bare words of Scrip-
ture. . . . All our forefathers, governors of
the Church of England, have with all dili-
gence forbid English Bibles. . . . The in-
tegritj^ of the Christian faith within your
realm cannot long endure if these books may
come in."

In vain all warnings. Early in 1526 both
editions were smuggled into England in bales
of cloth and in sacks of flour. "It came as
part of the Lutheran movement; it bore
the Lutheran stamp in its version of eccle-
siastical words," writes Green. It seems
the Hansa merchants brought the books to
their house, the Steelyard, on the Thames
Embankment, and then to All Hallows'
Church in Honey Lane. From here they
were spread by Dr. Fornan and his curate,
Thomas Garret.

"The first Religious Tract Society," as

[30]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

Green calls them, were the "Christian Breth-
ren," a society formed to spread Tyndale's
New Testament and Luther's writings, the
first English Lutheran Men's Club or Pub-
licity Bureau.

George Herman, an Englishman of Ant-
werp, in 1526 sold the New Testaments to
Simon Fish, a lawyer, who sold them to
Robert Necton, many of them, at sundry
times, five or ten at a time. Necton sold
seven in Suffolk "for 7 or 8 groats apiece,"
and others in London. Richard Bayfield
bought two unbound for 3s. 4d. At divers
times he sold 15 or 16 to Constantine.

About May, John Pykas, a baker of
Colchester, "bought a New Testament in
English, and paid for it four shillings, which
New Testament he kept and read it througli
many times," as he testified on trial before
Tunstal, March 7, 1528, in the chapel of that
very palace where Tyndale had in vain asked
the bishop's patronage.

At Michaelmas, 1526, John Tyball of
Steeple Bumstead in Essex and Thomas
Hilles bought in London from Robert Barnes
two testaments at 3s. 2d. each, and he showed
the book to the curate of the village.

[31]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

On March 15, 1528, Tunstal writes Wolsey
during the past year Theodoric, a Dutchman
of Antwerp, had twice brought "many testa-
ments in Enghsh."

John Raimund, or Endhoven, suppUed
over 700 English New Testaments to book-
seller Francis Byrkman.

In the summer, Standish, bishop of
St. Asaph, got hold of a copy and brought
it to Cardinal Wolsey; it was resolved that
the English New Testament should be pub-
licly burned wherever discovered. In Sep-
tember Tunstal, at Paul's Cross, condemned
the New Testament to be burned; in Octo-
ber he called it the work of "many children
of iniquity, maintainers of Luther's sect,
bhnded through extreme wickedness, wan-
dering from the way of truth and the Cath-
olic faith," and he warned all to deliver up
their English Testaments; yet he confessed
in his diocese the New Testaments were
"thick spread."

On November 21 Cardinal Campegi at
Rome wrote Wolsey he has heard with
pleasure of the burning of the Bibles brought
in by "the abominable sect"; nothing "could
be more pleasing to Almighty God."

It was a safe business venture to reprint

[32]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

Tyndale's translation, and before the end
of 1526 Christopher of Endhoven pirated
two thousand copies at Antwerp. Warham
would put an end to the heretical book by
buying it up, and he spent nearly seventy
pounds (about $5,000 today) before he gave
up the "gracious and blessed deed, for which
God should reward him hereafter," as Bishop
Nix of Norwich prayed; he also contributed
ten marks (about $500 in our money) to buy
and burn Bibles in 1527. Thomas Garret,
a curate of London, had Tyndale's New Tes-
tament, which he sold at Oxford "to such as
he knew to be lovers of the Gospel." Car-
dinal Wolsey arrested him and his friend
Dalaber and flung the Bibles into the fire.

Sure of buyers among friends and ene-
mies, the Dutch printers again pirated an
edition of Tyndale, and London was once
more supplied. In 1528 John Ruremond,
a Dutchman, got into trouble by printing
1,500 of Tyndale's New Testaments and
bringing 500 into England. In 1527 it was
reported by many that even the king himself
"wolde that they shulde have the arroneous
boks"; and "marchants and such that had
ther abyding not ferre from the see," were
greatly infected; and that from the college

Tyndale [33]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

at Cambridge which sent the most priests
into his diocese not one had come into Nor-
folk lately "but saverith of the frying pan,
tho' he speke never so holely."

Coming from the Treaty of Cambray,
concluded August 5, 1529, which embraced
"the forbidding to print or sell any Lutheran
books," Bishop Tunstal stopped over at Ant-
werp to seize Tyndale's New Testament.
Augustine Packington offered to buy all
unsold copies. "Gentle Master Packington,"
said the bishop, "deemyng that he hadde
God by the toe, whanne in truthe he hadde,
as after he thought, the devyl by the fiste,
do your diligence and get them for me; and
with all my heart I will pay for them what-
soever they cost you, for the books are erro-
neous and nought, and I intend surely to
destroy them all and to burn them at Paul's
Cross." And so forward went the bargain:
the bishop had the books; Packington had
the thanks; Tyndale had the money — to
print more Bibles.

Of Tyndale's quarto fragment only a
single imperfect copy remains; and of the
three thousand octavo, one, incomplete, in
St. Paul's Cathedral, and the other, without
the title-page, in the Baptist College at
[34]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

Bristol; all the rest were destroyed by the
papists. It has been estimated that about
30,000 Bibles were imported into England
from 1526 to 1536.

Tyndale likely studied Hebrew among the
Jews at Worms, whose ancient synagog was
built, according to tradition, shortly after
the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchad-
nezzar. Here Tjnidale met Hermann von
dem Busche, who, according to Spalatin's
diary under date of August, 1526, said Tyn-
dale "was so learned in seven languages —
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, En-
glish, French — that in whichever he spoke
you would think it was his native tongue."

Before the close of 1526 Tyndale printed
at Worms his famous Prolog to the Epistle
to the Romans. Robert Ridley condemns
it as "full of the most poisoned and abom-
inable heresies that can be thought of," and
Sir Thomas More attacks it for "bringing
its readers into a false understanding of
St. Paul." Demaus says: "Nothing could
show more strikingly than this work the
great ascendency which the German Re-
former had now obtained over the mind of
Tyndale. The Introduction to the Romans
is in truth hardly an original work but is
[351

Tyndale's Work in Germany

much more correctly described as a trans-
lation or paraphrase of Luther's preface to
the same epistle."

4. Tyndale at Marburg

In 1527 Philip of Hessen founded the first
Protestant university at Marburg. One of the
professors was Hermann von dem Busche,
a pupil of Reuchlin, the first German
Hebraist. Busch is said to be the first
nobleman to forget his rank so far as to
become a teacher in the schools; he was
professor of poetry and oratory. He had
kept up a correspondence with the English-
man, and it is supposed Tyndale went to this
quiet inland city to escape persecution.

On May 8, 1528, Hans Lufft printed
at "Malborow" Tyndale's Parable of the
Wicked Mamraon, a treatise on Justifica-
tion by Faith. "The choice of subject may
fairly enough be considered an indication of
the paramount influence which Luther now
exercised over the mind of Tyndale; and
indeed there are several striking similarities
of sentiment and expression which were
most certainly suggested by the writings of
the great German Reformer," says Demaus.
The Archbishop of Canterbury condemned
[36]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

it as "containing many detestable errors
and damnable opinions"; it was also con-
demned by a body of prelates and doctors
summoned by Henry VIII; Sir Thomas More
uniformly called it "The Wicked Book of
Mammon," "a very treasury and well-spring
of wickedness," "a book by which many
have been beguiled and brought into many
wicked heresies."

At this time there appeared also at "Mal-
borow" The Obedience of a Christian Man.
It defends the Reformers from the charge
that "they caused insurrection and taught
the people to disobey their heads and gov-
ernors and to rise against their princes and
to make all common and to make havoc of
other men's goods." In this work Tyndale
charged the papists with having corrupted
the Sacraments. Baptism and "the Sacra-
ments of the Body and Blood of Christ"
had promises annexed to them and were
therefore true Sacraments. "Scripture hath
but one sense, which is the literal sense, . . .
whereunto if thou cleave, thou canst never
err or go out of the way. And if thou leave
the literal sense, thou canst not but go out
of the way." No wonder Sir Thomas More
pours out the vials of his wrath upon this
[371

Tyndale's Work in Germany

book: "He hath not only sowked out the
most poison that he could find through all
Luther's books, or take of him by mouth
and all that hath spette out in this book,
but hath also in many things far passed his
master."

This book strengthened the Lutherans in
England: Bilney and Bainham, for instance,
repented of their recantation and bore the
cruel death by fire with remarkable courage.
It also gave to the Reformers a definite aim
and purpose. It fell into the hands of Anne
Boleyn, and through her Henry VIII read it.
"This book is for me and all kings to read,"
he said and took into his own hands the
reins of power hitherto held by Cardinal
Wolsey. Wolsey founded Cardinal College,
now Christ Church, at Oxford, for the pur-
pose of opposing Lutheranism, and among
his last words were for the king "to depress
this new sect of Lutherans."

In 1529 Tyndale sailed from Antwerp to
Hamburg, was shipwrecked, and lost every-
thing. He came to Hamburg, lodged with
widow Margaret von Emersen from March 28
till December. Here Miles Coverdale helped
him get out the five books of Moses in
English. By February Bugenhagen had
[38]

Holbein

HENRY VIII

Tyndale's Work in Germany

established Lutheranism in Hamburg, and
so Tyndale was safe there now.

Tyndale's translation of the five books of
Moses "v^as "Emprented at Malborow in the
lande of Hesse by me Hans Luft the yere
of our Lorde M.CCCCC.XXX. the XVII
dayes of Januarij." Tyndale followed Lot-
ter's edition of Luther's translation, though
not with the "slavish deference of a copyist,
as he is sometimes said to have done." In
the glosses "the spirit and even the style of
Luther is distinctly visible," says Westcott.
"Perhaps it would have been better if Tyn-
dale had in this matter more closely fol-
lowed his German predecessor; for the
greatest of Tyndale's admirers must admit
that his keen sarcasms are by no means so
suitable an accompaniment to the sacred
text as Luther's topographical and exposi-
tory notes," says Demaus. Some called him
"nothing more than an English echo of the
great German heresiarch." "Those best ac-
quainted with the theology of the English
Reformation will be the first to admit that
we shall look in vain in Cranmer, Latimer,
or Ridley for any such clearness of appre-
hension and precision as here displayed by
Tyndale."

[40]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

In May, 1530, Bishop Nix of Norwich
begged the king to kill the rumor he fa-
vored the New Testament; otherwise he
could not check the growing Lutheranism
in his diocese. The king called some thirty
divines to Westminster, and on the 24th they
condemned the free circulation of Old or
New Testament. The next day the king in
the Star Chamber said it was not necessary
for the commons to have the Bible in
English; at present it would only do harm.
Within fifteen days all copies were to be
given up to the church officers. In the same
month Tunstal made another big bonfire of
New Testaments and other Lutheran books.
From the Reichstag at Augsburg Cardinal
Campegi on June 28 wrote King Henry so
worthy a deed added great glory to his name.

Six months later Latimer wrote the king
three or four of the divines had favored the
English Bible but were overborne by the
majority.

In November Tyndale's brother John,
Thomas Patmore, and a young man living
near London Bridge were jailed by Chan-
cellor Thomas More for "receiving of Tyn-
dale's testaments and divers other books and
delivering and scattering the same." Each

141]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

of them was set upon a horse, and their
faces to the horse's tail, and paraded to the
Standard in Chepe, where they threw their
said books into a great fire. They were
fined, Patmore 100 pounds.

Early in March Tyndale's friend Thomas
Hitton was burned. His soul went "straight
from the short fire to the fire eternal. . . .
The devil's stinking martyr," writes St. Sir
Thomas More.

In August little Bilney perished in the
flames.

Richard Bayfield of Cambridge three
times brought great loads of New Testaments
into England, also five of Luther's works,
five of Melanchthon's, four of Brenz's, three
of Bugenhagen's, and others. In November
Sir Thomas More seized a load. About
Easter, 1531, he was betrayed by George
Constantine and burned on December 4.

John Tewkesbury, a leather merchant,
perished in the same month in the same
manner for the same offense.

In January, 1532, Thomas Dusgate, or
Benet, a graduate of Cambridge, was burned.
In March Hugh Latimer was arrested.
Through one Hacker over hundred Bible -
readers were punished.

[42]

THOMAS MORE

1431

Tyndale's Work in Germany

The bitterest of all Tyndale's writings is
his Practice of Prelates, a sort of historical
summary of the "practices" by which Pope
and clergy gradually grew up from poverty
and humility into that universal supremacy
enjoyed by them in Tyndale's time.

On March 7, 1528, Bishop Tunstal licensed
Sir Thomas More, his "Demosthenes," to
read the books of Lutheran heresy and reply
to them. More attacked "the pestilent sect
of Luther and Tyndale" in his Dialogue and
in 1531 Tyndale printed in Amsterdam his
Answer in defense of the Reformation. More
felt constrained to reply in his Confutation
in May, 1532, and the work of opposing Tyn-
dale kept him busy till the day of his death:
in all he wrote about one thousand folio
pages against the Reformer. The Confuta-
tion is extremely tedious and virulent —
"Not to speak of the ribald abuse poured
forth in season and out of season upon Lu-
ther, the language applied to Tyndale is
altogether unpardonable," says Demaus.

A few years before Tyndale had left
England poor and unknown; now his fame
resounded through all England. Sir Thomas
More, Lord Chancellor of England, chief
legal adviser of Henry VIII at a most mo-
[441

Tyndale's Work in Germany

mentous crisis in English history, felt com-
pelled to write against Tyndale. What
stronger proof of Tyndale's power could be
asked? According to Anthony Wood, More
was "one of the greatest prodigies of wit
and learning that England ever before his
time had produced," and Tyndale entered
the arena against him and in several impor-
tant points remained master of the field.
More had vowed, "I shall leave Tyndale
never a dark corner to creep into able to
hide his head in." Now he had to confess,
"Men thought his Confutation overlong and
therefore tedious to read," a sad confession
that the great wit of the age and chancellor
of the realm had gotten the worst of the
controversy.

In 1532 The Exposition of the Sermon on
the Mount was printed, the ablest of Tyn-
dale's expository works. George Joy says
that in reality "Luther made it, Tyndale
only but translating and powdering it here
and there with his own fantasies." "The
coincidences between Tyndale's Exposition
of the Sermon on the Mount and that of
Luther, though fewer, are even more worthy
of notice" than usual, says Westcott. This
great scholar also speaks of the "profound

145]

Tyndale's Work in Germany

influence which Luther exerted upon his
[Tyndale's] writings generally. The extent
to which Tyndale silently incorporated free
or even verbal translations of passages from
Luther's works in his own has escaped the
notice of his editors. . . . Tyndale's Prolog
to his quarto Testament, his first known
writing, almost at the beginning introduces
a large fragment from Luther's Preface to
the New Testament. There is indeed a ring
in the opening words which might have led
any one familiar with Luther's style to
suspect their real source."

When the plague visited Germany in 1530
and carried off Francis Lambert of the Mar-
burg University, a devoted friend of Tyn-
dale, the Englishman left Marburg and went
to Antwerp.

[46]

CHAPTER THREE
TYNDALE'S DEATH IN HOLLAND

On June 18, 1528, Wolsey ordered Ambas-
sador John Hackett to have the ringleaders
of the EngHsh Lutherans abroad arrested.
The EngHsh merchant Richard Herman,
a citizen of Antwerp, was jailed, but Tyndale
escaped. Friars John West and Flegh and
senator Hermann Rinck of Koeln also failed
to find Tyndale.

In November, 1530, Cromwell sent Ste-
phen Vaughan to get Tyndale to come back
to England. The reformer refused; he did
not trust the king's promises. Any wonder?
Tyndale's learned friend William Tracy, in
his will of October 5, 1530, confessed his
belief in salvation through Christ alone,
rejected all other mediators, would bestow
no money for the buying of prayers for his
soul. His body was dug up and burned!

The new ambassador to the kaiser, Sir
Thomas Elyot, was ordered to take Tyndale
forcibly and send him to England for punish-
ment. Easily said, not easily done. More
tells Erasmus that Tyndale, "the heretic of
our land, is in exile both nowhere and every-
where." With Cranmer at the Reichstag at
[471

SIR THOMAS ELYOT

Holbein

148J

Tyndale's Death in Holland

Regensburg in 1532, Elyot writes Norfolk on
March 14, as Tyndale "is in wit movable,
semblably so is his person uncertain to
come by."

Richard Herman was jailed for eight
months 1528 — 9 for supporting Tyndale and
helping "to the setting forth of the New
Testament in English." In 1534 he begged
Queen Anne Boleyn to be restored to his
privileges. On May 14 the queen asked
Cromwell to restore him.

In November, 1534, came the revised
second edition of the New Testament —
"Tyndale's noblest monument." The prologs
and glosses "have to a considerable extent
been translated from the German of Luther."

An edition de luxe, printed on vellum,
with capitals and woodcuts illuminated, on
its gold edges inscribed in red paint, one on
each face, the three words Anna Regina
Angliae, was gratefully sent to the queen.

Ever since the middle of 1534 Tyndale
had found a home with Thomas Poyntz at
Antwerp in "The English House," granted
to the English merchants with special priv-
ileges as far back as 1474. Tyndale also
practiced what he preached: justification
produced sanctification. "He reserved for

Tyndale [49]

CHARLES V

1501

Tyndale's Death in Holland

himself two days in the week which he
named his days of pastime, namely, Mon-
day and Saturday." One was devoted to
relieving English refugees; on the other "he
walked round about the town, seeking out
every corner and hole where he suspected
any poor person to dwell, and where he
found any to be well occupied and yet
overburdened with children or else aged or
weak, those also he plentifully relieved; and
thus he spent his two days of pastime."

Rigorous laws were passed year after
year to check the progress of Lutheran
doctrines. In October, 1529, Charles V or-
dained that the "reading, purchasing, or
possessing any proscribed books or any New
Testaments prohibited by the theologians of
Louvain, attendance at any meeting of her-
etics, disputing about Holy Scripture, want
of due respect to the images of God and the
Saints" were crimes for which "men were
to be beheaded, women buried alive, and
the relapsed burnt." In spite of these ter-
rible measures, Lutheranism continued to
make rapid progress; the Emperor in re-
venge issued fresh edicts, more severe than
before. Informers were encouraged by a
share in the confiscated goods of all con-

[51]

TYNDALE BETRAYED

[52]

Tyndale's Death in Holland

victed heretics, and lest the officials should
be mild, all who were remiss were punished.
The inquisition had full authority to seize
all suspected persons, to torture, to execute,
without appeal from their sentence; and
these tyrannical powers they exercised with
relentless cruelty. Charles V was not one
whit less ferocious than his son PhiHpII.

From these bloody measures Tyndale was
safe in the "English House"; outside he had
no protection. His enemies thirsted for his
blood.

Henry Philips, a smooth, treacherous vil-
lain, came over and won the confidence of
the simple-minded scholar, who lent him
forty shillings. The plans being ripe, the
Judas Philips invited the translator out to
dinner and then arrested him through the
Emperor's attorney, brought from Brussels,
and put him in charge of Adolph Van Wesele,
Lieutenant of the Castle of Vilvorde, the
great state prison of the Low Countries,
May 23 or 24, 1535. So skilful, secret, and
prompt had been the arrest that probably
no one knew of it till the Emperor's Pro-
cureur- General, the terrible Pierre Dufief,
came to search Tyndale's chamber and carry
off his books, papers, and other effects.
[53]

[54]

Ty7idale's Death in Holland

The English merchants, aggrieved by the
loss of an esteemed friend and by this
treacherous assault on their rights and priv-
ileges, wrote to the Queen Regent, Mary
of Hungary, entreating her to release Tyn-
dale. King Henry VIII and Cromwell were
appealed to, and Cromwell, with the king's
consent, wrote to Carondolet, Archbishop
of Palermo, and the Marquis of Bergen- op -
Zoom, two of the most influential members
of the Imperial Government. Poyntz de-
livered the letters, suffered labor, loss, im-
prisonment, risked his life for his friend;
but it was in vain.

As Paul in prison converted the jailer
of Philippi, so Tyndale in prison converted
the keeper, his daughter, and others of his
household; and the rest that became ac-
quainted with him said that if he were
not a good Christian man, they could not
tell whom to trust. Even the Procureur-
General called him "a learned, good, and
godly man."

A single Latin letter, written to the
Governor of the Castle, Antoine de Berghes,
Marquis of Bergen-op-Zoom, is all the auto-
graph we have of this noble man of God;
it is as follows: "I beheve. Right Worshipful,

[55]

r^ 3 i V If I-

'I

^l

I

,v<=>

5^

i 4 i

^i_

Sill « "i - « -s 5

[561

Tyndale's Death in Holland

\

that you are not ignorant of what has been
determined concerning me [by the Council
of Brabant]; therefore I entreat Your Lord-
ship, and that by the Lord Jesus, that, if
I am to remain here during the winter, you
will request the Procureur to be kind enough
to send me from my goods, which he has in
his possession, a warmer cap; for I suffer
extremely from cold in the head, being
afflicted with a perpetual catarrh, which is
considerably increased in this cell. A warmer
coat also, for that which I have is very thin;
also a piece of cloth to patch my leggings:
my overcoat is worn out; my shirts are also
worn out. He has a woolen shirt of mine,
if he will be kind enough to send it. I have
also with him leggings of thicker cloth for
putting on above; he also has warmer caps
for wearing at night. I wish also his per-
mission to have a lamp at evening, for it is
wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But
above all I entreat and beseech Your Clem-
ency to be urgent with the Procureur that
he may kindly permit me to have my He-
brew Bible, Hebrew grammar, and Hebrew
dictionary that I may spend my time with
that study. And, in return, may you obtain
your dearest wish, provided always it be

[571

158]

Tyndale's Death in Holland

consistent with the salvation of your soul.
But if, before the end of the winter, a dif-
ferent decision be reached concerning me,
I shall be patient, abiding the will of God
to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus
Christ, whose Spirit, I pray, may ever direct
your heart. Amen. W. Tindale."

James Masson, known as Latomus, who
had attacked Erasmus and also Luther,
writes: "When William Tyndale was in
prison for Lutheranism, he wrote a book on
the theme 'Faith Alone Justifies before
God'; this he called his key to the healthy
understanding of Sacred Scripture. We re-
plied in three books" — rather mildly.

The doctors of Louvain had thanked
Beaton for burning Patrick Hamilton in
Scotland and promised "there shall be those
among externe nations which shall imitate
the same." Now they had the opportunity
to imitate, and they used it. Tyndale was
tried for heresy. "It is no great matter
whether they that die on account of religion
be guilty or innocent, provided we terrify
the people by such examples; which gen-
erally succeeds best when persons eminent
for learning, riches, nobility, or high station
are thus sacrificed," said Ruwart Tapper,

[59]

Tyndale's Death in Holland

Doctor of Theology, Chancellor of the Uni-
versity of Louvain, one of the judges, fore-
most among the accusers of Tyndale and
most relentless in opposition to him.

"If they shall burn me, they shall do
none other thing than that I look for," Tyn-
dale had said long ago when they were
burning his Bibles; "there is none other
way into the kingdom of life than through
persecution and suffering of pain and of
very death, after the ensample of Christ."

On August 5 James de Lattre, inquisitor
apostolic of the Low Countries, deeded his
powers to Ruard Tapper. Soon after, Tyn-
dale was degraded, likely in the usual
manner. To the bishops seated on a high
platform the victim was led, robed in his
priestly vestments, and made to kneel. His
hands were scraped as a symbol of the loss
of the anointing oil; the bread and the wine
were placed in his hands and then taken
away; he was stripped of his vestments and
clothed as a layman. The presiding bishop
then turned him over to the secular officer.

The martyr sent a letter to Poyntz by
the keeper of the castle, who warmly com-
pared Tyndale's behavior in prison with that
of the apostles.

[60]

Tyndale's Death in Holland

Early in October, 1536, Tyndale was
strangled to death, and then his body was
burned. "He cried at the stake with a loud
voice, 'Lord, open the King of England's
eyes!' "

Tyndale's dying prayer was heard. At
the very time of the martyr's fiery death
the first Bible printed on English soil came
from the press, printed by the king's own
patent printer Berthelet, or Godfrey. It was
Tyndale's revised New Testament, with his
prologs, and his name openly set forth on
the title-page; it closed with the words:
"God saue the Kynge and all his well-
wyllers."

Tyndale fought a good fight; he finished
his course; he kept the faith; he made good
his vow: "I will cause a boy that driveth
the plow shall know more of the Scripture
than thou doest." When Bishop Stokesley of
London sneered at the Word of God which
every cobbler was reading in his mother
tongue, Bishop Fox of Hereford replied, "The
lay people do now know the Holy Scriptures
better than many of us."

"Evil-favored in this world and without
grace in the sight of men, speechless and
rude, dull and slow-witted" — is the picture

[61]

Tyndale's Death in Holland

Tyndale paints of himself. Even if true,
what of it? Fox calls him "the Apostle of
England"; the North American Review con-
siders him "the chief of the English re-
formers"; the Christian Observer says:
"Few are adequately conscious what an
imperishable debt of gratitude is due his
memory"; the British Quarterly judges him
"perhaps the greatest benefactor that our
native country ever enjoyed"; Froude says
his "epitaph is the Reformation."

In 1866 his admiring countrymen reared
to his memory a cross -crowned lofty and
massive monument on Nibley Knoll in
Gloucestershire, and in 1884 Lord Salisbury
unveiled another by J. E. Boehm in the
Thames Embankment Gardens, near White-
hall Court and in 1913 another was put up
at Vilvorde with inscriptions in English,
Latin, French, and Flemish, and he is hon-
ored in Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and
the Hterary grace of Tyndale's Bible is the
proud boast of all the educated English-
speaking world, "the most splendid literary
monument of the genius of our native
tongue," as H. W. Hoare writes.

162]

CHAPTER FOUR
TYND ALE'S INFLUENCE

In 1535 or 1536 Miles Coverdale issued
the Biblia, Translated out of Douche and
Latyn into English. "He was especially in-
debted to Luther's Bible," says Professor
Pattison; and again, "The influence of Lu-
ther is very apparent." At Cambridge Uni-
versity Coverdale attended the meetings at
the White Horse, called "Germany," because
of the Lutheran opinions held there. Later
he was twice a Lutheran pastor at Berg-
zabern, in Zweibruecken, also the Bishop of
Exeter. He had a considerable share in the
introduction of German spiritual culture to
English readers. The first hymns sung by
Protestant Englishmen were the forty-one
"Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songs"
which Coverdale translated from Luther
and others, in the original meter, so that
they were sung to the original Lutheran
melodies. Under Bloody Mary the book
was forbidden, to the great loss of English
hymnology, as Herford laments.

In 1537 Matthew's Bible appeared, Tyn-
dale's Bible, with the untranslated portions
1631

MILES COVERDALE, BISHOP OF EXETER

[64]

Tyndale's Influence

of his Old Testament pieced out with Cover-
dale's translation, done by John Rogers,
chaplain to the merchant adventurers at
Antwerp. About 1536 Rogers went to Wit-
tenberg, matriculated on November 25, 1540,
and was a pastor in Saxony. Hoare writes:
"It is chiefly remarkable for the excessive
Lutheranism of its annotation, in which it
out-Tyndales Tyndale himself," and it has
the "character of a Lutheran manifesto."
Rogers was the first martyr under Bloody
Mary, Monday, February 4, 1555, "he has
been burned alive for being a Lutheran; but
he died persisting in his opinion," wrote
Count Noailles, the French ambassador in
London.

Richard Taverner, a London lawyer, the
translator of the Augsburg Confession and
the Apology, prepared a Bible, based on
Matthew's, printed in London in two editions
in 1539; it is prefaced by a manly dedication
to the King.

The "Great Bible" appeared in 1539 —
practically Tyndale's work; the martyr now
triumphed gloriously. The "Great Bible"
was presented by Coverdale to Archbishop
Cranmer, who laid it before the King, who
"authorized" it and had it set up in every

Tyndale [65]

ARCHBISHOP CRANMER

166]

Tyndale's Influence

church throughout the kingdom and com-
mended by the clergy!

Bonner put six copies in St. Paul's and
was sore distressed to find people persisted
in reading them even during the public ser-
vices while the preacher was declaring the
Word of God. The title-page told that "it
was oversene and perused at the commande-
ment of the King's Highness by the ryghte
reverende fathers in God, Cuthbert bishop
of Duresme, and Nicholas bishop of Roch-
ester." And who, think you, was this "Cuth-
bert of Duresme"? None other than Tunstal,
the same Cuthbert who had refused to Tyn-
dale a scholar's room, who had denounced
and burned his Bible. This Cuthbert Tunstal
officially recommended Tyndale's work! Tyn-
dale did not live, labor, and die in vain!

During the six and a half years of the
reign of Edward VI thirteen editions of
Bibles and thirty-five of Testaments were
published in England. The days of Bloody
Mary were not good days for Protestants
and Bibles. But when Elizabeth made her
entry into London and arrived at "the Little
Conduit in Chepe," she was presented with
a Bible. "Raising it with both her hands,
the Queen presses it to her lips, and then

167]

[681

Tyndale's Influence

laying it against her heart, amid the enthusi-
astic shouting of the multitudes, she grace-
fully thanks the city for so precious a gift."

Lord Bacon writes: "On the morrow of
her coronation, it being the custom to release
prisoners at the inauguration of a prince, . . .
one of her courtiers . . . besought her with
a loud voice, 'That now this good time there
might be four or five principal prisoners
more released; these were the four evan-
gelists and the Apostle St. Paul, who had
been long shut up in an unknown tongue,
as it were in prison, so as they could not
converse with the common people.' "

In 1560 came the Geneva Bible, with a
dedication "to the most virtuous and noble
Queen Elizabeth." For the first time Roman
type was used, and the chapters were divided
into verses. The monopoly of printing it
Elizabeth granted to John Bodley, founder
of the famous Bodleian Library at Oxford.
Eighty editions appeared.

Archbishop Parker planned the Bishops'
Bible of 1568 — "The influence of Tyndale is
strongly felt," and of the notes it is said,
"their sturdy Protestantism is often worthy
of Luther himself."

In 1611 came the King James Version,
1691

EDWARD VI

[701

Tyndale's Influence

practically Tyndale's Bible. The Roman
Catholic scholar Alexander Geddes writes:
"Every sentence, every word, every syllable,
every letter and point, seem to have been
weighed with the nicest exactitude and ex-
pressed with the greatest precision." The
poet Rogers says: "Oh, the exquisite English
of the Bible! I often feel as if the translators
as well as the original writers must have
been inspired." The historian John Richard
Green says: "As a mere literary monument
the English of the Bible remains the noblest
example of the Einglish tongue, while its
perpetual use made it from the instant of
its appearance the standard of our language."
"In Tyndale's translation we find most of
the strength as well as most of the sweet-
ness of the Authorized Version. . . . There is
a graphic simplicity about it which captures
the ear at once. . . . The music of Tyndale's
translation with equal ease rises to the
stately majesty of a march or falls to the
homelike sweetness of a mother's lullaby.
The arrangement of words of some sentences
is in itself triumphal." The Roman Catholic
Faber writes: "Who will not say that the
uncommon beauty and marvelous English
of the Protestant Bible is one of the great

1711

BLOODY MARY

[72]

QUEEN ELIZABETH

[73]

Tyndale's Influence

strongholds of heresy in our country? It
lives on the ear like music that can never
be forgotten, like the sound of church-bells
which the convert hardly knows how to
forego. Its felicities seem to be things rather
than words."

"Of the translation itself, though since
that time it has been many times revised
and altered, we may say that it is substan-
tially the Bible with which we are all
familiar. The peculiar genius — if such a
word may be permitted — which breathes
through it, the mingled majesty and tender-
ness, the preternatural grandeur, the Saxon
simplicity, unequaled, unapproached in the
attempted improvements of modern scholars,
all are here and bear the impress of the
mind of one man — William Tyndale," says
Froude.

"From 1525 to 1884 the best Biblical
scholarship of the English nation, not at-
tempting to supersede Tyndale's work, has
succeeded only in bringing a matchless work
a little nearer perfection. Tyndale's influ-
ence in fixing the standard and exhibiting
the noble possibilities of the English lan-
guage has far exceeded that of any other
writer. In his English New Testament Tyn-

[74]

TYNDALE MONUMENT
NIBLEY KNOLL, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

[75]

Tyndale's Influence

dale laid the 'grand foundation-stone of
England's greatness' and conferred the
greatest of all spiritual blessings on all
English-speaking peoples."

"That Tyndale's EngHsh is decidedly
superior to the writings of his time which
have come down to us cannot be disputed;
it is a noble translation, the basis of every
subsequent English version, and on several
accounts better than all subsequent ver-
sions; it has an individuality as pronounced
as Luther's, its Saxon is racy and strong,
sometimes majestic, and, above all things,
it is hearty and true. The reader feels that
the translator felt what he wrote, that his
heart was in his work, and that he strove
in prayer to reproduce in his own mother
tongue to the very best of his ability what
he believed to be the true sense of the Word
of God as he understood it."

In our present Bible eighty per cent, of
Tyndale has been retained in the Old Testa-
ment and ninety per cent, in the New, and
in spite of many revisions almost every sen-
tence is substantially the same as Tyndale
wrote it. No greater tribute could be paid
to his industry, scholarship, and genius. To
him we owe the exceeding beauty and tender

[761

177]

STATUE OF TYNDALE IN LONDON

[78]

Tyndale's Influence

grace of the language of our present Bible.
For felicity of diction and for dignity of
rhythm, Tyndale never has been, and never
can be, surpassed. George P. Marsh calls it
''the first classic of our literature — the
highest exemplar of purity and beauty of
language existing in our speech. . . . When
we study our Testaments, we are in most
cases perusing the identical words penned
by the martyr Tyndale nearly three hundred
and fifty years ago."

Dore speaks of Tyndale's "strong Lu-
theran bias"; Bishop Marsh says: "His
translation was taken at least in part from
Luther's"; Cardinal Gasquet says: "Luther's
direct influence may be detected on almost
every page of the printed edition issued by
Tyndale." McComb says: "Some of the
happiest renderings in our English New
Testament we owe indirectly to the German
Reformer." Another writes: "Happily our
own excellent translation of the Bible still
retains striking evidence of the influence of
his [Luther's] admirable version, and per-
haps it is not too much to say that the two
most copious and energetic languages are
greatly indebted to him [Luther] for their
terseness and expression."
179]

WORKS CONSULTED

TYNDALE'S Works, edited by the Rev. Hy.

Walter for the Parker Society.
FOX'S Acts and Monuments, 3 vols. Fol. 9th ed.

London, 1684.
FROUDE'S History oj England.
GREEN'S History of the English People.
DEMAUS'S Wm. Tyndale, 2d ed.
SMITH'S Wvi. Tyndale.
MOZLEY'S William Tyndale.
ANDERSON'S Annals of the English Bible.

Prime's edition.
MOMBERT'S Handbook of the English Versions

of the Bible.
STOUGHTON'S Our English Bibles.
PATTISON'S History of the English Bible.
SMYTH'S How We Got Our Bible.
HOARE'S Evolution of the English Bible.
DOPE'S Old Bibles, 2d ed.
EADIE'S English Bibles, 2 vols.
WESTCOTT'S History of the English Bible.
LOVETT'S The Printed English Bible.

FRANCIS FRY'S Bibliographical Description of
the Editions of the New Testament. Tyndale's
Version.

GASQUET'S Eve of the Reformation.
[80]

Works Consulted

MARSH'S Lectures on the English Language,

4th ed., 1862.
MUIR'S Our Grand Old Bible.
McCOMB'S The Making of the English Bible.
ADAMS'S Great English Churchmen.
MARSHALL'S Dayspring.
MOULTON'S Library Literary Criticism.
GARNETT AND GOSSE'S III. Hist. Engl. Lit.
Dictionary of National Biography.
The English Bible in the John Rylands Library.
Exeter Hall Lectures, 1851—52.
Atlantic Monthly, Vol.85.
Nineteenth Century, 1898, 1899.
Harper's, March, 1902.
Academy, 1884.
Athenaeum, 1885.
Christian Observer, 1867, 1872.
North American Review, 1848.
III. London News, May, 1884.
North British Review, Vol. 5.
London Review, Vol. 39.
Argosy, Vol. 30.

Tyndale [81]

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

PAUL: LIFE AND LETTERS

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PETER: LIFE AND LETTERS

"A masterpiece of the printer's art, splendidly
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JOHN: DISCIPLE, EVANGELIST, APOSTLE

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According to the Four Gospels, with Explanations,
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Quarterly. 481 pages, gold-top, art-leather binding

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A comprehensive survey of the religions of the

world. Second edition. 66 pages, cloth — .60 cts.

THE CHRISTIAN

Depicts the virtues and characteristics of a genuine
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Third edition. 213 pages, cloth $1.25

HOW PETER BECAME POPE

A startling expose of the depravity of the Popes.
"A curious, stirring, often ghastly series of quotations
on the usurpations of the Papacy." — Augustana Qvur-
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[82]

By the Same Author

MARTIN LUTHER: HIS LIFE AND HIS LABORS

A fascinating biography "for the plain people,"
though it is based on the findings of historical experts.
143 illustrations. 292 pages, cloth $1.75

PORTRAITS OF JESUS

A book of sermons — doctrinal, yet crisp, terse,
powerful. 227 pages, cloth $1.50

THE HOLY GHOST

In twelve chapters Dr. Dallmann briefly shows what
the Bible teaches concerning the Holy Ghost. "Timely,
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NEW TESTAMENT
More than forty titles examined and discussed for
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Simple, popular sermons on prayer and the Prayer
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Complete collection of quotations concerning Lu-
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87 pages, cloth 30 cts.

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JESUS APPEARED

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[83]

By the Same Author

GOD'S GREAT GIFT

Instructive and devotional reading centering on
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CHRIST IS RISEN

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[841

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